The making of the Troubles in Northern Ireland

Résumé du document

This text was written in 1992. 20 years before, British soldiers came on to the streets of Northern Ireland. It was the start of the fresh round of the Irish trouble. Was it inevitable? Was it postponed by the partition of Ireland in 1920? Was it the result of an IRA plot which manipulated the civil rights movement? Interviews undertaken by the author (oral data) - complexity of participants' own perceptions, motivations and actions

Historical issue which is central: chaotic/rapid transition from a civil rights movement to a bloody intercommunal strife - frame of references for the 20 years of Troubles which followed.

What was the social world of the Catholic people of NI in the mid-1960s?
Civil rights literature: accumulating grievances that took a ‘second-class' to the point of revolt.
Unionist literature: natives led to bite the hand that fed them by ruthless enemies of the state.

Several characteristics are underlined by people interviewed:
-Divided society polarised along religious lines - different schools, different games/sports (at least different clubs)… Belfast was ghettoised.
-Various affirmations of Protestant superiority - physically: an assertion of what was seen as territorial rights (e.g. Dungannnon - Market square as a Unionist domain)

-Overwhelming impression of physical force to maintain segregation and to contain any Catholic spark of rebellion - Special Powers Act: RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) - people arrested
-Nationalist celebrations of the 1916 Easter rising were illegal, whereas Unionist rituals of affirmation (e.g. 12th July: Orange parades) were promoted.
-Discrimination at job interviews - e.g. it was asked the schools they were from

Extraits

[...] Interviews undertaken by the author (oral data) - complexity of participants' own perceptions, motivations and actions Historical issue which is central: chaotic/rapid transition from a civil rights movement to a bloody intercommunal strife - frame of references for the 20 years of Troubles which followed. What was the social world of the Catholic people of NI in the mid-1960s? Civil rights literature: accumulating grievances that took a ‘second-class' to the point of revolt. Unionist literature: natives led to bite the hand that fed them by ruthless enemies of the state. Several characteristics are underlined by people interviewed: - Divided society polarised along religious lines - different schools, different games/sports (at least different clubs) Belfast was ghettoised. [...]

[...] The intensity of the NI conflict suggested that the Troubles were an inevitable product of the sectarian divide which had characterised Ireland for decades. Catholics (minority) began to protest in the streets against the Protestant supremacy and the reaction of the Unionists brought more Catholics in the streets. In a country dominated by the sectarian divide, clashes between Catholic protesters and Protestant officers were always more likely to lead to communal conflict rather than to class struggle. “Sixty-eight was a global revolt, but across the world it took place in national and local contexts. [...]

[...] The Communists, Republicans and Nationalists (gathered in the NICRA) felt that violence would wreck the civil rights campaign. Around 350/400 people for this march (five times less than for the March to Dungannon). No explicit order was given to draw batons but certain officers appear to have reacted by striking McAtteer and Fitt (both were MPs). The television coverage transformed the situation. Thesis of the author: Northern Ireland was different (compared to other countries), but not exceptional. Northern Ireland under the Unionists was not outside the mainstream in Europe. [...]

[...] The threat of the IRA was feared by Protestants. The Rev. Ian Paisley organised counter- attacks to CR events. He blocked the moves towards reforms - “O'Neill must - In April 69, a seat to the Westminster Parliament was won by Bernadette Devlin (People's Democracy) - the biggest ever anti- Unionist majority. It led to a minor riot in Derry: the RUC moved in to the Catholic Bogside district. There, Sammy Devenney was savagely attacked by the RUC (no apparent reason). [...]

[...] He asked: “What kind of Ulster do you want? A happy respected province Or a place continually torn apart by riots and demonstrations, and regarded by the rest of Britain as a political outcast?” Burnttollet: January 1969: 40 young people (People's Democracy) gathered beside Belfast City Hall (before 9 am) ready to walk 70 miles from there to Derry - model: March led by Martin Luther King in 1965 between Selma and Montgomery. break the truce, to relaunch the civil rights movement as a mass movement and to show people that O'Neill was, in fact, offering them nothing” The march was stopped, redirected - the marchers were forced to bypass certain towns. [...]